Best Blender Buying Guide | KitchenGearPro

Best Blender Buy­ing Guide: If you are look­ing for a Blender, you have many options. The choic­es can be con­fus­ing, but knowl­edge itself is pow­er. You can make the best judg­ment when you have all of the facts in front of you. This is why we have put togeth­er this infor­ma­tion. Here is what you need to know before buy­ing a blender.

Read More: The Four Kitchen Knives You Need for Home Cooking

Types of Blenders

There are three (3) main types of blenders: full-size, per­son­al, and immer­sion. The basic coun­ter­top blender is undoubt­ed­ly famil­iar to you. It is the same as your grand­moth­er’s. Let’s begin with this most preva­lent and well-known type.

Full-Size Blenders

A full-size blender is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered a pop­u­lar coun­ter­top machine. It con­sists of a motor on a base with a pitch­er or jar and a lid. Bars, cof­fee shops, and smooth­ie shops usu­al­ly have tra­di­tion­al blenders like these. These machines usu­al­ly offer sev­er­al speeds to help with mix­ing, blend­ing, cut­ting, and oth­er sim­i­lar activities.

Personal Blenders

The name itself is say­ing all. Per­son­al, also known as sin­gles serve or bul­let blender, is a new con­cept that was intro­duced first to con­sumers by the NutriBul­let brand in 2004. The idea is to pre­pare the sin­gle-serv­ing por­tion of the drink and take it away or con­sume it in the same con­tain­er. Smooth­ie fans who are in a hur­ry in the morn­ing find the idea of a per­son­al blender very convenient.

They are ide­al for mak­ing smooth­ies from hard and soft ingre­di­ents (depend­ing on the blender mod­el) items like yogurt, fresh fruit, and veg­eta­bles. These devices are suit­able for peo­ple who pre­fer a liq­uid break­fast in the morn­ing. There are usu­al­ly only one or two speeds on these lit­tle blenders. Com­pared to most coun­ter­top blenders, they’re afford­able but less pow­er­ful and adapt­able. If you do a lot of cook­ing, they are not a good sub­sti­tute for a full-size coun­ter­top blender.

Immersion Blenders

Immer­sion blenders, also known as stick or hand blenders, are most­ly used for light prep recipes. If you would like to find out more about this type of device read our arti­cles here.

Compare the Costs

Often, it all comes down to mon­ey. How much mon­ey can you afford to spend? Blenders are priced dif­fer­ent­ly depend­ing on their make and mod­el. The good news is that there is a blender to suit every bud­get as they range in price from as lit­tle as $20 to as much as $1,000. The cost is deter­mined by pow­er, dura­bil­i­ty, and high-qual­i­ty mate­ri­als, and they may be divid­ed into rough­ly three classes.

Affordable

The blender for basic needs will cost you around $50. The decent mod­el, some­times with addi­tion­al sin­gle-serve or/and food proces­sor acces­sories, may be locat­ed even for under $100. Such machines can per­form more than just basic smooth­ies and mix­ing prep recipes. Some mod­els would be able to make even nut but­ter with some effort.

Mid-Range

This cat­e­go­ry usu­al­ly falls into the machine that tries to copy the high-end blenders and can accom­plish some or most of the tasks the high-end devices can per­form. They often have the same engine but are not as good qual­i­ty as pre­mi­um blenders. They may cost you around $200.

High-End Options

The gen­uine­ly top-of-the-line Vita­mix or Blendtec mod­els will be with­in reach after you have spent more than $350. These are the stur­di­est and last­ing types of com­mer­cial-type blenders for home use, and they’re great for any­one who wants to get the best from their blenders. These types of machines pro­vide ver­sa­til­i­ty as well as pow­er. You will allow you eas­i­ly make nut but­ter, knead the dough, and mill the bak­ing qual­i­ty flour from any grains.

Look at Its Power

Here are some pow­er range guidelines:

Up to 600 watts:

This is the pow­er rat­ing found on the major­i­ty of inex­pen­sive coun­ter­top blenders. Blend­ing and mix­ing soft ingre­di­ents with liq­uids should go smooth­ly. This type of machine will usu­al­ly cost up to $50.

Up to 1200 watts of power:

This pow­er rat­ing is avail­able on the most afford­able (under $100) coun­ter­top and advanced per­son­al blenders. The tough­est ingre­di­ents will be chopped and blend­ed with some effort.

1300 to 1800 watts of power:

You’re now enter­ing the realm of true ver­sa­til­i­ty. A blender with such pow­er can process hot soups from cold ingre­di­ents via fric­tions, make your own peanut but­ter and grind grain into flour. Because you will have more pow­er, you will not be lim­it­ed in your explo­ration. This extra mus­cle will cost you more money.

Container, Size, and Construction

There are many dif­fer­ent blenders avail­able, each with a dis­tinct con­tain­er. When shop­ping for a blender, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing features:

Material

There are many dif­fer­ent blenders avail­able, each with a dis­tinct con­tain­er. When shop­ping for a blender, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing features:

Plastic:

Poly­car­bon­ate is the most com­mon mate­r­i­al for con­tain­ers used nowa­days because it is rel­a­tive­ly light­weight and sim­ple to main­tain. How­ev­er, dish­wash­er safe­ty is an issue for some of them, and plas­tic is more sus­cep­ti­ble to stains. In addi­tion, poly­car­bon­ate mate­r­i­al may con­tain BPA and oth­er harm­ful sub­stances; thus, some peo­ple con­sid­er it unsafe, espe­cial­ly when used for hot foods.

The Tri­tan co-poly­ester mate­r­i­al is an advanced, durable, and vir­tu­al­ly unbreak­able type of plas­tic pro­duced in the USA. Since it can with­stand heavy usage, high­er tem­per­a­tures, and acidic foods bet­ter than poly­car­bon­ate, it is used for most pre­mi­um blender models.

Glass:

Glass used to be the com­mon blender con­tain­er mate­r­i­al before 90^th when all sorts of poly­car­bon­ate became very pop­u­lar amongst blender man­u­fac­tur­ers. How­ev­er, today the con­sumer will not find a large selec­tion of blenders with glass jars. Since they weigh more than plas­tic, are more dif­fi­cult to trans­port, and are more prone to dam­age and break­age, few man­u­fac­tur­ers find them con­ve­nient for blender design.

Nev­er­the­less, the glass con­tain­ers are typ­i­cal­ly more resis­tant than plas­tic when it comes to scents and dis­col­oration and lack of issues with BPA and oth­er harm­ful chem­i­cal leak­ages to food. The glass jar blender is still very pop­u­lar with health-aware con­sumers, but no great selec­tion of such blenders is avail­able nowadays.

Other:

Stain­less steel is used to be a very pop­u­lar mate­r­i­al for com­mer­cial blender jars that were exposed to heavy usage. Now, most of them use Tri­tan co-poly­ester mate­ri­als since it is much lighter, trans­par­ent (you can see what you are mix­ing inside), and has the same tech­ni­cal para­me­ters when it comes to with­stand­ing high every­day stress­es. In addi­tion, stain­less steel jars are long-last­ing, easy to clean, ide­al for var­i­ous foods, and have no BPA leak­age issues. There­fore, a few man­u­fac­tur­ers offer option­al stain­less steel con­tain­ers for their blenders due to increased con­sumer demand for them.

Containers with Inbuilt and Removable Blades

All per­son­al blender and many afford­able and mid-range coun­ter­top blender comes with remov­able blade con­struc­tion. A remov­able blade con­tain­er has detach­able knives that are attached to a shaft that con­nects to the blender gear.

While almost all High-end and a few mid-range blender mod­els come with inbuilt blades, this type of blender is much eas­i­er to assem­ble, dis­as­sem­ble, and clean.

Containers Sizes

Blenders range in size from two (2) to four­teen (12) cups, and only you can decide which size is best for you. Remem­ber that the small­er the blender con­tain­er, the less pow­er­ful the blender.

If you only want to blend smooth­ies and shakes for your­self, a small per­son­al blender will save you space and time clean­ing. How­ev­er, if you’re going to keep your blender options open, you will be bet­ter off with the larg­er capac­i­ty gadget.

Upkeep and Maintenance

Sev­er­al con­tain­ers, lids, and blades can be washed in the dish­wash­er, but check your blender’s man­u­al to be sure. How­ev­er, any blender pitch­er can be self-cleaned; sim­ply fill the pitch­er with water and dish soap and run it. The process will thor­ough­ly clean the inside of the container.

Make Sure It Fits Your Space

It is impor­tant to make sure your blender will fit under your kitchen cab­i­net when it comes to blender dimen­sions. Before buy­ing the gad­get, check how tall is the machine pro­file with the con­tain­er lid on the top. If you plan to keep your blender on your coun­ter­top, it should not exceed 18 inch­es. That is a stan­dard space between the counter and the bot­tom of the kitchen cabinet.

If you decide to stock­pile it in your kitchen cup­board, make sure it has enough space for stor­ing this bulky device.

Final Thoughts

A high-qual­i­ty, fea­ture-packed blender will cost you, but con­sid­er it an invest­ment. It can last a long time if prop­er­ly cared for, but there’s noth­ing wrong with get­ting a sim­ple, inex­pen­sive blender if it meets your needs.

Choos­ing a blender isn’t tricky, but it should be done with care. If you buy a blender that you don’t like or use, it will gath­er dust on your counter.